Abstract
Baxter State Park is a 200,000 acre preserve located in north-central Maine that contains, among other natural features, Maine's highest mountain, Katahdin. The park was created through the efforts of a former Governor of Maine, Percival Proctor Baxter, who bought the land himself and then donated it to the people of the State of Maine. His Deeds of Gift, which were accepted by the Maine Legislature, created a trust, under the terms of which the Park is to remain "forever wild." The park is supervised by the three-member Baxter State Park Authority, which is composed of the Attorney General, the Commissioner of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, and the Director of the Maine Forest Service. A 1973 Opinion of the Attorney General maintains that the Baxter State Park Authority has control and management of Baxter State Park paramount to any other state agency. Acting in reliance on that memo, the Maine Land Use Regulation Commission (LURC), which serves as the planning and zoning board for the state's 10.5 million acres of unorganized territory, has foregone any exercise of jurisdiction over the area comprising Baxter State Park. The 1973 Opinion is wrong because it misconstrues the nature of the trust over the park; the trust is a creature of statute, not of traditional trust law. Moreover, the 1973 Opinion wrongly interprets the controlling statutes. Accepted principles of statutory construction would compel the conclusion that Baxter State Park is subject to LURC jurisdiction.
First Page
515
Recommended Citation
Benjamin P. Townsend,
Jurisdiction of the Land Use Regulation Commission Within Baxter State Park,
42
Me. L. Rev.
515
(1990).
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.mainelaw.maine.edu/mlr/vol42/iss2/12